Govt develops face recognition system to spot anti-social elements

The Indian government has developed a facial recognition system that can identify anti-social elements with or without disguise, with face masks or monkey caps on, even in low-resolution images at restricted zones as well as public places. The Ministry of Defence (MoD), in its latest report titled ‘AI in Defence’, revealed the Face Recognition System under Disguise (FRSD), along with other AI-based systems, chiefly developed for the Indian Army.’Face recognition in the wild’ on surveillance camera feeds is a difficult problem to solve due to the low resolution of the images captured from the cameras.This problem becomes even more challenging to solve with the added complexity of various facial disguises, crowd occlusions and varied illuminations.According to the MoD report, the FRSD algorithm has been trained in such a way that the face recognition system can see through several disguises like face-masks, beard, moustache, wigs, sunglasses, head-scarves, monkey caps and hats, etc.Apart from the disguises, the system also considers different lighting conditions, shadows on face, crowd occlusions, etc.”The system can be deployed at restricted/secure zones for the purpose of live video surveillance. It can also be deployed at public places to recognise anti-social elements,a the report mentioned.